Private Participation in Infrastructure in Developing Countries : Trends, Impacts, and Policy Lessons
Governments have long recognized the vital role that modern infrastructure services play in economic growth and poverty alleviation. For much of the post-Second World War period, most governments entrusted delivery of these services to state-owned...
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| Format: | Publication |
| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC: World Bank
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/04/2476615/private-participation-infrastructure-developing-countries-trends-impacts-policy-lessons http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15124 |
| Summary: | Governments have long recognized the
vital role that modern infrastructure services play in
economic growth and poverty alleviation. For much of the
post-Second World War period, most governments entrusted
delivery of these services to state-owned monopolies. But in
many developing countries, the results were disappointing.
Public sector monopolies were plagued by inefficiency. Many
were strapped for resources because governments succumbed to
populist pressures to hold prices below costs. Fiscal
pressures, and the success of the pioneers of the
privatization of infrastructure services, provided
governments with a new paradigm. Many governments sought to
involve the private sector in the provision and financing of
infrastructure services. The shift to the private provision
that occurred during the 1990s was much more rapid and
widespread than had been anticipated at the start of the
decade. By 2001, developing countries had seen over $755
billion of investment flows in nearly 2500 infrastructure
projects. However, these flows peaked in 1997, and have
fallen more or less steadily ever since. These declines have
been accompanied by high profile cancellations or
renegotiations of some projects, a reduction in investor
appetite for these activities and, in some parts of the
world, a shift in public opinion against the private
provision of infrastructure services. The current sense of
disillusionment stands in stark contrast to what should in
retrospect be surprise at the spectacular growth of private
infrastructure during the 1990s. |
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